Review of the film “The Piano Lesson” (2024)

The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington's feature film debut, an ambitious adaptation of the prolific playwright August Wilson's powerful play of the same name. Along with a star-studded trio—his brother John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and Danielle Deadwyler—Washington's study of inheritance (trauma, wealth, and history) is a powerful portrait of black ancestry in America.

The Charles family has a generational heirloom, a piano engraved with the faces of their ancestors. The piano was originally stolen from the home of her former slave owner, James Sutter (Jay Peterson), in hopes of passing it down from generation to generation. Years later, in 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, Boy Willie (Washington) travels north from Mississippi to Pennsylvania with his friend Lymon (a charmingly shy Ray Fisher) in hopes of reclaiming and selling the piano buy his own land.

Standing in his way is his sister Berniece (Deadwyler), who owns the piano and vows never to sell it, but hardly dares to say a word about its history to her young daughter, let alone play it. As the siblings clash under the roof of their rather ambivalent Uncle Doaker (a wise but familiarly sardonic Jackson), “The Piano Lesson” takes off. The film attempts to bring together the familial conflict between Berniece and Boy Willie into some kind of resolution about what black people should do with their history.

In this film, John David Washington is electrifying, full of drive and ambition. His presence on screen borders on sensory overload and becomes fitting for Berniece's perspective. His long-winded, colorful tirades and broad, forceful gestures come across as an orator in his element, charismatic as hell but ultimately an uncomfortable sermon for Berniece's subsurface approach to her frustrations. Their characters couldn't be more contrasting, and Deadwyler's performance is equally impressive in its restraint, although Berniece is no less forceful than her brother. Deadwyler is taut, her neutral stance rarely ever taking up more space than her body takes up. Her postural rigidity indicates both Berniece's oppression and her righteousness.

The back and forth of Willie's threat to steal the piano and Berniece's insistence on keeping it shakes the spirit of the house, and Malcolm Washington greets this invitation of magical realism into the story with a deft hand. Hauntings by Sutter lead to further chaos in the house when his apparition manifests itself in doorways or when water floods the upstairs of Berniece's house, usually only for Berniece's religious eyes (giving Boy Willie another reason to fire her). The central location of the house is beautifully transformed by Washington and his ensemble, from scenes of quiet, hair-raising tension to swaggering unity in drunken singing, all showcasing aspects of grappling with violent histories. Meanwhile, the piano stands firm and immobile in the center of the house, looming like an almost persistent reminder of its ghostly inevitability.

Washington handles this allegory without resorting to condescending over-explanations. Berniece and Boy Willie are characterized by outrage and oppression in their approaches to the past. As she intends to bear the burden of the past and protect her daughter from the knowledge of her ancestors' grief, Boy Willie proudly tries to act in spite of it all, without ever fully accepting the past for all it is. Composed of empathy for all of his perspectives (while providing space for equal rebuttal), Washington's film shows how our engagement with Black history is rooted differently in different bodies. In doing so, The Piano Lesson recognizes that discussion and engagement must be the first step toward resolution.

Tomorrow at the cinema. On Netflix November 22nd.